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Baked Clam Chowder— Hotel Side Dish

A baked clam chowder with clams, salt pork, potatoes, onions, milk, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Clam Chowder— Hotel Side Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake the diced salt pork in a deep pan or crock until light brown.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer thinly sliced potatoes over the pork.

  2. Add sliced onion.

  3. Add half the clams (cut into small pieces).

  4. Add more potatoes.

  5. Add onion.

  6. Add the remaining clams.

  7. Top with more potatoes.

  8. Top with crushed crackers.

  9. Mix the milk with clam liquor, add salt and pepper, and pour the mixture over the layers.

  10. Bake until heated through and the top is golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and savory body of the chowder.
Salt pork
Renders fat as it bakes, adding savory flavor and browning the base.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the layers and soften as they bake, thickening the dish.
Milk
Combines with clam liquor to make the creamy liquid that moistens the layers.
Crushed crackers
Form a crisp, golden topping as the dish bakes.

The step that matters

Bake the salt pork until light brown. Browning the pork renders its fat and builds savory flavor in the base before the liquid is added, which the finished chowder depends on.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, pork, potato, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, pork, potato, pepper, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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